In Memoriam
by ExcessivelySesquipedalian
Summary: On a night muffled by falling snow, he went to remember. To say goodbye.


**I do not own Doctor Who. This is evidenced by the fact that the Master is still evil, still dead, and not a companion yet. I do not own the song whose lyrics are referenced here, either. **

Winter had wrapped the land in snow that night, and all lay still and quiet. The trees quivered occasionally, reluctantly shouldering their burdens of snow. The shed had been turned into a frosted gingerbread fantasy cottage, icicles jutting from its roof. The garden that had been a smoking ruin all those years ago was bare and smoothly white. Even the blue structure off to one side has been dusted with a sparkling coat. Farther away, the only light was the cold, distant moon, casting dramatic shadows over the landscape. But here, the lights in the house cast a warm, welcoming golden glow over the snow.

Inside, however, the scene is much less peaceful. Christmas music blares from the radio in the corner. A big tree stands in the corner, almost fully decorated but missing one final element. The top is bare of decoration, decoration the Doctor happened to be holding.

"For the last time, no, you can't put the star on the tree," Amy said resolutely. The Time Lord's puppy eyes were a feeble attempt to break her defenses.

"But why not?" he pleaded. "It's the best bit…"

"Yes, and knowing you, you'll mess it up," Rory repeated for the tenth time. "We've explained already."

He handed over the tree topper reluctantly. Meanwhile, Amy's parents were laughing hysterically in the corner. They weren't quite used to the fact that their daughter's imaginary friend was quite real and was visiting them for Christmas, but they were doing very well under the circumstances. It helped that the Doctor's charisma, if nothing else, was aided by the fact that he had a tendency to be very, very funny. In a ridiculous way.

With the tree finished, they sat back together- all but the Doctor, who suddenly got up and went over to the door.

"Where are you going?" Amy asked him.

He smiled absently- and a little sadly, she noticed, as if he were distracted by an unhappy memory. "Oh, I just have to pop out for a few minutes. Something I have to do."

"The last time you told me five minutes, it took you fourteen years," she reminded him. "What's my guarantee you'll come back?"

He took her hand for a moment. "I promise," he said. She knew he was telling the truth.

The Doctor left silently.

"Don't worry," Rory assured his mother-in-law. "He does that all the time."

The old, old man looks so young that night, as he stands in the softly falling snow. It drifts onto his jacket and drops into his hair, but he doesn't move to brush it off. He simply stands, reverently, in silence. Around him, trees dot the landscape, in this quiet spot, far from the bustle of London. He comes here, every year on this day. To remember. Around him are the places where the lost have been so long ago laid, the plots decorated lovingly with roses and gifts that family has left for their dear ones on Christmas.

This stone is unadorned, a simple rectangle of swirled gray marble. Snow has covered its surface, and obscured its message, but it is still clean and new, well-tended by someone who cares. Nobody lies beneath this monument. No one but the man remembers the one it was placed to honor. There is no one left to.

He put this up in the days following that terrible death of his, when he felt himself die and continue to live at the same time. After he remembered how he saw a friend lost forever, and realized that it was he who had killed him after all. He breaks the trance suddenly, leans down to brush off the covering of snow on the gravestone.

The words are simply carved, showing little of their reason for being. The loss of a man who was as close as a brother. The loss of his family, his kind, his friends. In the end, he had regained all those only to lose them again, all because of one person. Around the edges of the stone, swirls and circles are etched into the rock, carrying a message that is only for him, because there is no one else to read it now. With all the space in the world, he could not write all the goodbyes he needs. There's no room to tell of the days they spent together, laughing in the fields underneath twin suns. No way to describe those long ago times when he truly was a young man, with a home and a best friend beside him, rebelling then and now. In all the million tongues that his ancient mind can comprehend, there is no word for the feeling of his hearts breaking from betrayal. No words for the sorrow that fills him still.

A single tear burns a hole into the snow.

The epitaph says nothing of this. It is clear and heartfelt.

_For Koschei._

_Ad Aeternam._

_Numquam Singularis._

The Time Lord turns, and walks away, leaving a thousand words unsaid in the silence, his footsteps the only sound and his footprints the only mark in the pristine snow. He moves on, as he always will. Running.

He cannot carve words that will stand the test of time. This marker will fade, and crumble, the words worn away with wind and rain and the endless change of the seasons. But he will remain, a lone throwback to the past. The Rememberer. The great healer, with wounds that will never heal. And he will never forget the man who died for him in the end. He will never forget the time they will never have. His offers- to come and be one with time alongside him- are seldom made, and more seldom refused. But the one person he would rather have by his side than any other can never be there again. He is the last one.

When he is gone, there is a pocketwatch and a ring on the stone, slowly being wiped clean by the snow.

**This is by far not my first fanfic but it is my first published one so please review! I will have another short, contemplative one like this coming soon and after that a longer story- please keep checking back for more :) **


End file.
